Original Sins (10 page)

Raymond had missed out on this ritual, and felt cut off. “Well, guess I'd better move on,” he announced, trying to stand up.

“Won't you stay and eat some dinner with us, Junior honey?” his grandmother inquired.

“I'd love to, Granny. But I got to go take my pictures.” The truth was that he thought his feet would take root in the front steps if he stayed longer. How his father escaped—and why—he would never understand. The peace, the calm acceptance. So different from the noisy factory, the bustling town. An owl hooted on the ridge.

“You'd better stop off and say hidy to Lyle and them.”

“I can't this trip, Grandpa. I'm in a rush. But tell them I say hi.”

“Come back when you can stay awhile,” his grandfather called as Raymond walked toward the car.

Raymond could hear his father's voice telling (as he had time after tedious time) about leaving Tatro Cove: “Somebody was going to drive me to the bus. As I walked down to the car toting my stuff in a paper sack, I saw Pa coming down the holler driving the cow. It was dusk, and lightning bugs was blinking all around him. On his hip sat my sister Inez, who was a little one-year-old baby then. She was dressed in one of them white knit gowns. She was smiling up at him and cooing, and he was just chattering away to her. The tears in my eyes was so thick I couldn't hardly see to get in that car.”

Maybe Raymond could reverse the process? Build a cabin, work in a mine?

He parked near a tipple with Consolidated Coal painted on it. He photographed it, and the train cars being filled one by one with gleaming black chunks, and the huge trucks with names painted on their cabs that brought in loads from the small mines for cleaning and sorting. The men, in hard hats and work clothes, slapped each other on the back and yelled jokes over the din. It was hard work, honest work. Raymond found it appealing. His uncles and cousins were coal miners. His father and grandfather had been. He'd return to the family profession. This is where he would work! He would go down into the belly of the whale, and he would emerge changed. He would emerge a man!

As he ran out of pictures to snap up above, he began to confront the fact that he would be spending the afternoon in the middle of a mountain. The previous year he had photographed some weeping widows after an explosion and cave-in in Southwest Virginia. He hoped no one would have to weep for him this afternoon.

You get used to this, he assured himself as the electric car descended into the tunnel. But until you did, it sure did feel claustrophobic. This was probably how a baby felt being propelled through its mother's birth canal: Until this moment, he hadn't realized how good he'd had it where he'd been before. He became conscious of each limb, of how much he liked and used each hand and foot and arm and leg. What if a roof bolt came loose, and several tons of slate crashed down? His grandfather had lost his arm that way.

He pulled himself together and asked the man driving the car to stop while he lit flares and snapped shots of the passageway and the tracks. On they went, deeper and deeper into the mountain, with only the long narrow tunnel connecting them to daylight

He snapped—men running the huge continuous miner machines, loading and riding the conveyor belts, mending pumps in water to their knees, eating lunch as water dripped from the ceiling onto their sandwiches, placing roof supports. They ate away at the innards of this mountain like ravenous termites. And like a lacy termite-riddled log, was it possible the remains could collapse into powder?

He rode to the surface, feeling vomited from the maw of a hideous beast. He photographed the men, blinking in daylight, their faces except for their eyes and teeth black as the coal seam they'd been working.

In the showers, water the color of ink flowed down drains. The bodies under the showerheads were bent, twisted, scarred, and bruised. Fingernails were cracked and caked with black. The men coughed up, spit, and snorted out globs of black mucus.

Raymond grasped the fact that he was a frail and cowardly kid. He wouldn't be able to do this work even if he wanted to.

His father, with his slicked-down hair and long sideburns, was lying in green work clothes on the living room couch watching “The Beverly Hillbillies” on television. His mother, sitting in a chair, said, “You missed supper, Junior. Where you been?”

“Sorry. I was up to Clayton shooting some pictures of mining and stuff.”

“That don't sound like any kind of a way to spend an afternoon,” said his father.

“It was kind of interesting. But scary.”

“Oh, them mines up at Clayton is downright modern. You should of seen them dog mines we used to work before all this fancy federal regulation stuff. Why, they wasn't no more than holes in the sides of hills. You put on these knee pads, kind of like basketball players wear, and you crawled in there and started hacking and shoveling. Hit's a miracle we wasn't all killed.”

“I stopped off and saw Granny and Grandpa.”

“Oh, that's nice. How are they?”

“They seemed fine. Same as always.”

“We ought to get ourselves up there, Mrs. Tatro.”

“Dad, did you come down here mostly for the work?”

“You're dang right I did. That's what life's all about once you leave school, son. You might as well start facing up to it.”

“Do you ever wish you were back there?”

He lay with his eyes closed. “Oh, heck yeah, I used to miss it something fierce. Used to know ever square inch of that holler.”

“The only time he used to seem halfway cheerful,” Raymond's mother added, “was when the weekend came around and he could load us in the car and go back up there. But it used to take us half a day to get there, the roads was so bad.”

Jethro on the television had decided to use his share of the royalties from the oil field discovered under his family's shack in the Appalachians to set himself up as a movie agent.

“Something you got to understand about that cove, Junior,” his father said. “The Lord had a long hard time carving it out of them mountains. Our ancestors was the first people to ever settle there, and they had them a long hard time getting there.”

“Yes sir.”

Jethro was ordering himself a Cadillac and several silk suits.

“The season my daddy loved best was midwinter,” Mr. Tatro resumed. “He was happy as a clam when there was a storm, and we'd all be snowed in together there in the house for a week or more. We'd whittle and play cards and listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the battery radio and mess around on the banjo. He'd almost cry when the snow melted and us kids had to go off to school and he had to go back to the mine. Course around about February we'd start running out of the stuff Ma had canned and stored from the garden. Then we'd have us biscuits with flour gravy twice a day, and wonder when the flour would give out. That wasn't no fun.”

“Do you think Grandpa minds that you left?” This question seemed crucial to Raymond.

“I remember it was real hard to decide to go. I was just a wreck. I didn't really want to go at all, but it was almost like I was possessed or somethin—just couldn't set still. I heard the mill down here was hiring. Finally I went and said I was leaving. He looked at me real glum-like for a long time. Then he smiled and said, Well, boy, I wish you well. I always meant to leave, but I just never did get around to it.'”

He had a faraway look in his eyes. He shook himself. “But I do believe, Junior, that it's better to be able to eat regular until you're full. And to stay warm in winter, and buy your family shoes and clothes. And medicine and doctoring when they're sick. Hell fire, I know it's better. Now I know it is. But there I was that night in the Newland bus station with a brown paper sack and no money. The only thing I wanted was to get on the next bus home. Shoot, I'd never been farther away than the next county. And ever person I'd ever seen I'd been related to one way or another.”

“You never saw such a hick as walked into my mama's boarding house that night,” Mrs. Tatro exclaimed.

“Your mother used to wear hats all the time,” his father confided. “These jobs with feathers and veils. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. White gloves too. Yeah, this old city sophisticate here took advantage of an ignorant country boy. What do you think of that, Junior?” They laughed.

His father added, “Hit ain't easy leaving what's safe and familiar, but some folks just got to. I reckon hit's in their blood to wander or something. And once you go, you can't never go back. You don't fit in no more.”

Raymond studied his father, as his parents chuckled over Jethro's attempt to fake knowledge to a real movie agent of a contract he had been incapable of reading. It was strange to think of his father having been through such a drama. His life was so humdrum now. He got up and went to the mill, came home, ate supper, watched television, and went to bed. For twenty-five years. It gave Raymond the creeps.

About twice a year he'd drink too much and throw a piece of furniture at anyone who was dumb enough to stick around. And some Saturdays when he was trying to get Raymond and Jed to wash the storm windows or something, he'd start shouting about what lazy ignorant punks they were, who'd never amount to anything in this world; all his hard work had been for nothing, and why hadn't he just stayed in Tatro Cove and been happy. Once when the phone kept ringing for Raymond, he ripped the wires out of the wall. Another time, when Jed spent too long in the bathroom primping, their father kicked the door down.

Sally spent the morning helping the Girls' Union clean up from the dance. That afternoon she worked downtown at the Ingenue bake sale with Marlene Webb. They were raising money for the annual Plantation Ball. She had baked Toll House brownies, Jed's favorite, which she always baked when it was her turn as a member of the Young Hostess Club to provide refreshments for the football team and coaches at their “Chalk Talks.”

She sat at a card table in front of Anderson's Drugstore as the Saturday shoppers strolled by. As Betty French passed, in white pedal pushers and a tight black sweater, Sally whispered to Marlene, “There goes Betty French. Did you know the boys call her Betty Boobs?”

Marlene laughed. “Now, that's just awful. They ought to be ashamed.”

“But you can see why, can't you? I mean she doesn't have to wear her sweaters that tight.”

“She sure doesn't. And if you do, you should expect to have exactly the kind of rep she does. Ronny says she French kisses.”

“No.
If she knew what French kissing means, I bet she wouldn't do it.”

“What does it mean?”

“Well, you can just imagine, can't you? If a boy pushes his tongue into your mouth?”

“Screwing, you mean?”

“Well, sure.”

“Ronny says she does that too.”

Sally sat in shocked silence. “Who with?”

“Anyone who wants it.”

Sally gasped. “Just like that?”

“That's what Ronny says.”

“I just can't believe it. When I think that someone even nominated her for Ingenue last year.”

“I know. Wasn't that
incredible?
Next thing you know somebody will be trying to get Ina Sue Bascombe in!”

They collapsed laughing. “She doesn't even shave her legs yet!” Sally gasped between giggles.

Almost everything had sold but a few date bars and some fudge divinity. Jed sauntered up, his hands in his chino pockets. “I'll buy everything you got left, little lady,” he said with his lazy grin, “if you'll drive out to the lake with me.”

“You got yourself a deal, mister,” Sally said with a smile, wrapping up the food and taking his money. He folded the table and chairs and carried them to his car.

“What you been up to, Good-looking?” Sally asked as they drove out of town.

“Nothing much. Worked out. Played me some basketball. Washed the car. Stuff like that. Slocombe was over at the gym when I was working out. That guy, I swear. He's so bad.”

“What do you mean?”

“Aw, I don't know. It's like Coach Clancy says: ‘He was standing on the wrong side of the door when the brains was being passed out, and now he don't even have enough sense to pee downwind.' You know what I mean?”

“What did he do?”

“Aw, shoot, I don't know, he just stood around with his mouth hanging open, grinning and watching me work up a sweat. I thought I'd puke after a while. It's like during a game when Coach calls you in off the field, Slocombe comes waddling up to you with a towel, and he's just so damn eager for you to like him or something. Makes you want to squash him.”

“Jed, that's terrible.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right” It was just too bad Jed wasn't a faggot, was all he could say. He had the feeling if he was, old Slocombe would turn around and touch his toes so you could shove it right up him.

He took a cigarette out of the pack in his shirt pocket and lit it.

“I don't know why you do that, Jed. It's just not good for you.”

He grinned. “You sound more like my mama every day.”

“Mama was never like this,” she murmured, scooting over and putting the tip of her tongue in his ear.

He shuddered with delight “You're right, darlin.” He shrugged and threw the cigarette out the window. She took his hand and caressed his knuckles. He smiled, thinking of the surprise he'd set up for that afternoon.

The lake was flashing by off to the right. They turned down a dirt road, drove past a marina and several cottages, stopped above a field that sloped down to the water, and walked hand in hand through the high grass almost to the water. Jed spread a blanket and turned on his portable radio to the local rock and roll station. They sat and watched some distant water skiing. The lake had been formed by flooding several thousand acres of farmland. Waterlogged tree limbs still protruded close to the red clay shore. Jed lay down and pulled Sally on top of him. They nibbled each other's lips and necks. Sally rolled over on her back, and Jed sat up and chewed a piece of grass.